


Promises

by poesflygirl



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), F/M, Heavy Angst, Marvel Universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22702966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poesflygirl/pseuds/poesflygirl
Summary: The Infinity War has ended, leaving trillions dead in its wake. Nobody thinks there’s a way to reverse it. Besides you, having been told by the Sorcerer Supreme that she’s the only one who can. But to do it, you’re going to need to break the promise of a lifetime.
Relationships: BestFriend!Tony Stark & Reader, BestFriend!Tony Stark X Reader, BestFriend!Tony Stark/Reader, Steve Rogers & Reader, Steve Rogers x Reader, Steve Rogers/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Promises

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: The ending of iw (the titan scene), endgame spoilers, indirect talking of sacrificing yourself (not really but kinda), building collapse, being stuck under debris, passing out, mentions of severe injuries, mentions of blood, mentions of death

“Tony, there was no other way.” Strange turns to you, his brows furrowed. “Y/N, It’s all in your hands now. You’re the only one that can do it.”

“Do what? Strange, do what? Strange!” You scream his name from your raw throat as he turns to dust, the same way that all the Guardians did.

“Mr. Stark?” _No. Not the kid. Anybody but the kid._ You turn around and to your despair, Peter has started to dust away too. “I don’t feel so good.”

“You’re okay,” Tony lies, and your heart pangs. Peter falls into Tony’s arms, and what follows breaks your heart:

_“I don’t— I don’t know what happening, I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go, Mr. Stark, please, please, I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go, Mr. Stark.”_

The anguish in his words hurt more than fighting Thanos did: more than some cracked ribs, severe internal hemorrhage, and a possible skull fracture. He falls into Tony’s arms and Tony places him on the ground.

“I’m sorry.” You look in shock as Peter finally disintegrates, and Tony sits down in despair, closing his eyes and holding his hands to his face. Pain slices through your abdomen and you bite your lip to keep you from screaming in pain. Easing yourself to the ground, you lie down and close your eyes. Then it hits you like a truck.

_The Avengers lost. Thanos won._

You feel yourself slowly slipping away from reality but force yourself to stay in the present. _Tony couldn’t suffer another loss. You couldn’t leave him like that. It would finally break him, as if he already wasn’t broken enough._

“Y/N?” You hear Tony’s feeble voice from beside you.

“Yeah?” You immediately wince at even opening your mouth, your head feeling like it was repeatedly being slammed by Mjölnir.

“You’re not gonna leave me, right?” He asks mildly. Your stomach drops.

“No. I’m not going to.”

“You promise?” The nostalgia nearly breaks you.

_“Y/N!” You hear someone scream your name._ Tony. What the fuck happened? _You can barely see, dust and debris not making your vision any better. All your senses relay to you is a sharp ringing and stabbing pain in your left leg. The sound of grinding stone comes from in front of you and a sharp light pierces your eyesight. “Holy shit.”_

_“Tony,” you moan, trying to shield your eyes from the light. “What happened?” You can barely make out him moving some other piece of debris, giving him a clear view of you.  
_

_“Physics building collapsed,” he mutters, and you can hear the fear in his voice._ Physics building? How ironic. _All you can remember is seeing a looming shadow and running out of your car towards the sunlight; it was just a reaction. Fight or flight instinct, and you couldn’t fight a damn building. “We’re just sixteen, this isn’t supposed to be happening! This is my fault. You were waiting for me; I should’ve left class earlier—”  
_

_“This is in no way your fault,” you tell him, groaning from the pain. “Don’t you fucking dare blame yourself. I’m still alive. How bad am I?” Your sight has adjusted and you can see him looking from your leg to you. “Tony. Answer me.”  
_

_“There’s something sticking through your left leg; it looks like a metal rod.”_ Fuck _. “Promise me you’ll stay alive.” You raise an eyebrow, confused by his sudden hopelessness._

_“Tony—”  
_

_“Promise me you won’t leave me,” he begs, despair in his eyes causing your stomach to drop.  
_

_“I promise, Tony. I promise._

“I promise.”

There it was again. Little did you know that in five years, that promise would be broken.

“Alright, I’ve got the rations,” you say, plopping down onto the table. _Seriously, where were the chairs?_ Tony rummages around in the Guardians’ storage.

“I think I found some crepe bandages and gauze, but I don’t know if it’ll do the trick.”

“I don’t think anything’s doing to do the trick,” you say, wincing at your pounding head.

“What are you implying?” Tony’s quizzical voice resounds through Benatar. According to the robot, Nebula, that’s what the Guardians’ ship was called.

“Nothing.” _I’m not going to make it. That’s what I’m implying. Goddamnit Tony, stop having so much hope. I’m not gonna make it, no matter how hard either of us tries._

“You’ll be fine.” _Oh come on Tony, lying might be your strong suit, but I know you better than anyone. Anyone._ Regardless, you decide to play along just for his sake.

“I hope so.”

He sits down at the table and hands over the crepe bandages and gauze, which you take with a nod. Staring out into the void of space from Benatar’s cockpit window, you sigh in despair.

“We’re gonna die here, you know? At least I am.”

“Come on, have some hope—”

“ _Hope_? Tony, we’re not kids anymore. Every time one of my wounds is stitched up, another opens. My bones are showing zero chance of healing, and my skull fracture isn’t going to get any better. I might as well give you a better chance to make it out.” The ship goes silent for a minute as Tony figures out what you’re saying and how to respond.

“Y/N, you’ve been there for me since the start. Since Howard and Mom’s deaths. Afghanistan. The Stark Expo. New York. Sokovia. Germany. That alien plant we just got off of. Right now, literally adrift in space. You’ve always been there for me, I’ve always been there for you, and I always willbe. I’m not going to give up on you _that_ fast, [Y/N/N].” He smirks and you crack a smile.

“Nice to know someone cares.” He frowns.

“I’ve always cared. Who do you think doesn’t care? The Aven—” he stops himself mid-sentence.

“Exactly. Just think about it.” He stays silent, allowing you to continue. “Steve?” Your voice breaks. “A _traitor_. Clint? The same. Nat? I thought she was on our side. Bruce? Nobody knows where he is. Wanda? It’s not like she cares about any of us.” Tony starts up, but you cut him off. “Where were they? Where were they, Tony? When we were fighting aliens in _New York,_ ” you emphasize the effect of the fighting being on the same _planet_ , at least, “where were they? And oh, don’t forget, where were they when we needed them the most? When we were fighting Thanos? They don’t care, Tony. They don’t, and you can’t change my mind otherwise.”

“Just some hope,” he pleads, and you just shake your head.

“No need to have hope when you know there’s no reason to.”

“You don’t sound like the Y/N I know.”

“Maybe I’m not.”

And to this, Tony has no response.

You watch in silence along with Nat, Rhodey, & Bruce as Tony gives Steve a piece of his mind. 

_It was long overdue; Steve deserves it._

No, he doesn’t. 

_Yes, he does._

He was just fighting for what he believed in. 

_That doesn’t mean he had to hurt anybody._

Everyone gets hurt emotionally. It’s part of life. 

_Did you forget the physical part?_

As your rational and emotional sides battle each other, your mind drifts back to Germany.

_He’s right there, in front of you, at most 20 feet away. This is exactly what you didn’t want to happen. You against him. Lover against their own. Except now, you weren’t sure you were his._

He didn’t know that.

_“Steve.” Your voice is cautious but strict at the same time._

_“Y/N.” His tone is the exact opposite, breathless and pleading._

_“Stop it. Stop it, Steve, right now.”_

_“You know I can’t. You know better than anyone.”_ Great, now he was using your emotions against you.

_“No. I know better than anyone that you can.”_

_“Y/N/N, please. I don’t want to hurt you.” You scoff, and Steve winces as though you’ve physically hurt him._

_“After all of this?” Your voice breaks. “Even_ I’m _not sure about that.” He gives you a pleading look, but your face remains stoic. You wouldn’t forgive him, you thought to yourself. Not for betraying the Avengers. He knew the Avengers were all you had. They were your family._

You had no clue what was to come.

_You start towards him and he mirrors your actions. Slowly, both of your paces accelerate and you realize there was little chance you could beat him, even if he didn’t have his shield._

_You would at least go down trying._

_Using your telekinesis, you throw his shield off to the side, nearing him. He throws a punch but you dodge it, throwing him a side kick to his right. He easily thrusts down his arm and blocks it, catching your leg in the process. You flip over in an attempt to throw him in the ground, but he lets go too quickly. You’ve nailed a three-point landing in the process, something Nat had taught you early on. But you’re not fast enough._

_Steve has summoned his shield once again, and you roll your eyes in annoyance, using your telekinesis to, rather violently, sweep him off his feet._

_He obviously didn’t expect it, which is what makes it such a powerful move. But what takes the triumph out of you is that he lands the wrong way._

Shit.

_Your stomach immediately drops and you run over to him, skidding on your knees to bring you to a stop next to him._

_“Steve? Steve!” He groans and opens his eyes, rolling over. His shield is lying next to him, and you bite your lip. Prying it from his grip, you take a look behind you to see if anyone can take it off your hands. With your luck, Tony is preoccupied with Clint, Spidey with Wanda, Rhodey the new one that could resize himself (Ant-Guy?), Vision with Sam, & Nat and T’Challa with Bucky._

_“I’m so sorry,” Steve starts, but you don’t give him the chance._

_“You don’t need to lie, Steve. I get how much Bucky means to you. You’d give up us, the Avengers, your family, for him. He must mean a lot.”_

Even more than you, huh?

_You laugh bitterly, agreeing with your thought out loud. “Yeah. Even more than me.” There are so many layers of emotion in Steve’s eyes that you can barely decipher any of them._

_“You know that’s not what I—” he stops abruptly, his eyes traveling left of your head. You almost immediately know what he’s looking at. More importantly,_ who _he’s looking at. “Bucky, no!” You dive to your left, but a sharp pain in your head, a flash of silver, and a sharp ringing in your ears are the last things your senses relay to you before everything abruptly turns black._

You shake your head, snapping out of your flashback. Tony is still lecturing Steve, and based on the look on Steve’s face, you know he’s guilt-ridden and has been for the last two two years.

“Alright Tony, I think you need to calm down—”

“ _Calm down?_ ” You flinch at the menace laced into his words. “I showed you what happened in Sokovia, did I not? I lost trust in all people, besides just a handful of people; five, to be exact.” Your stomach drops. _You, Peter, Pepper, Rhodey, & Happy. _“And speaking about losing trust, don’t I speak for the both of us? You said it yourself, remember?”

You don’t say a word, your eyes traveling from Tony’s to Steve’s. _He’s not the same man you fell in love with; he’s changed. Remember that._ Steve’s baby blue eyes are overlaid with multiple layers of guilt, him knowing that you were well aware of what went down in Sokovia. Tearing your eyes away from him and back to Tony, you state, “That’s not—”, but he cuts you off once more.

“Are you sure? Because I clearly remember you saying that your trust was broken with some certain people.” You let out a sigh of frustration, Tony noticing all the signs that you didn’t want to talk about this but ignoring them.

“Tony. _Stop_.” Realizing he’s inflicted enough damage, he turns back to Steve.

“I’ve got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options! Zero, zip, nada. No trust—liar.”

“Tony,” you warn him getting up and starting towards the pair. Before you even make it two steps, your head starts to spin and you blink, trying to regain focus. An annoying ringing starts up in your ears. You put a hand on the table you were sitting at to steady yourself, but it does little good. You don’t hear Nat’s cautious questioning or Tony’s yells of, “Get her medical!”, before the lead on your eyes becomes too heavy, the ringing in your ears unbearable, and the darkness arrives, swallowing you like a tide.


End file.
